Field of the Disclosure
This disclosure generally relates to methods of quantifying the efficiency of a drug molecule for its targeted receptor. More particularly, this disclosure is drawn to methods of using a differential binding force to quantify the efficiency of a drug molecule to its targeted receptor. Further, this disclosure relates to a method of quantifying: enantomeric selectivity of drugs for a target; the selectivity of a series of drugs for a target; and the selectivity of a DNA sequence for binding to a receptor/target or ligand.
Background of the Technology
The interactions between small molecules, such as ions and drug molecules, and nucleic acids are widely encountered in biological functions and drug development. Among the most important aspects in characterizing these systems are the sequence selectivity of the DNA and the conformational selectivity of the drug molecules. Various techniques have been applied to study drug-DNA systems, including nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), second harmonic generation, fluorescence, circular dichroism UV melting,[9] X-ray,[10] atomic force microscopy (AFM),[11,12] and optical tweezers. However, none of these techniques can adequately, and directly measure the binding strength of such interactions with a sufficiently high force resolution, so that different DNA-drug interactions can be distinguished. Therefore, a method to quantify the efficiency of a drug molecule to its targeted receptor; a method of quantitatively measuring DNA sequence selectivity to a ligand or a receptor; and the enantomeric selectivity of a molecule for its receptor/target would be well received in the field.